Ghosts in the machine
by Anais in the afternoon
Summary: Sometimes he goes back to Proculus. It isn't what they think, whatever that may be. The city has been alone for so long. Features Chaya.


**A/N: **Obviously, I'm not claiming anything as my own except the somewhat amateurish dialogue. Thank you for reading. :)

* * *

Sometimes he goes back.

The trades he makes are not very valuable, but always fair. They can't complain about that and no one comments on those trips anymore, not even Rodney, though he had enough to say about the whole thing at first. Even so, from the looks the scientist shoots him every time he dials _that _Gate address he can surmise Rodney's suppositions about his reasons for returning to the planet have not changed that much. He probably envisions him as some sort of intergalactic playboy, picking up chicks all over the universe.

It isn't like that.

She accepts him. She _knows _him. Even after he had almost turned into some scaly, savage half-bug and came back unsure of who he was now, what it even meant to be human when that circumstance was, apparently, so easily changed. Even then, she knew him. And helped him remember. Chaya never asks for anything in return; there are no conditions. He suspects it is comforting for her simply to have someone to share with. It is not the physical act he knows the other members of the expedition imagine; nor is their relationship anything like, well, anything else. He is unsure there is even a word for it. If there is, he could probably not use it anyway. He has never been good at voicing his feelings. With her, that does not matter.

She sometimes shows him nebulas, stars being born, black holes consuming everything at the centre of a galaxy. At other times she focuses on the small, shows the moving beauty in living cells. She seems to delight in his reactions to these visions, these little things she is allowed to share because he already knows of them. The Others would probably not accept her sharing her working knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and he does not ask for it. It is an odd feeling, the knowledge they are most likely being monitored closely, and not one he likes. Sometimes she talks about her loneliness, but not often, and she never shows it in his mind. He suspects she is trying to protect him from the force of it and supposes that is a good thing, though it feels a little unfair, having shared all _his_ pain with her. Still, having a "saviour complex" as Rodney calls it is one thing, thinking you can bear the weight of tens of thousands of years of loneliness is something different altogether. So he does not ask.

He does learn little things though, sometimes. One day, when he is walking up the sloping mountainway to her temple again, she meets him in the middle. They walk the rest of the way in companionable silence, only accompanied by the sound of what is probably some sort of cricket-like creature that could also be something different entirely. This is the Pegasus after all.

"The sharing…" she starts, trails off again, looking in the distance. He follows her gaze, but there is nothing there but the empty, sun-drenched hills.

"Among my people it was not unusual to do so." She bites her lip. "I have missed it greatly, all these years…and I think you at least deserve to know…Have you ever looked into your family history?"

Now that was unexpected. He snorts. "No more than I couldn't possibly avoid…just a bunch of profit-obsessed business owners for the most part. Though my grandpa was a pilot too. Well, as a hobby. But I suppose that is where my love of flying came from. Had to come from somewhere."

"Hmmm" She looks away again, studying the ground this time.

"What?"

After a time, she turns to him again, looks him in the eye. "I thought you should know. That we may be kindred."

Before he can ask what she means by that (kindred. Likeminded people? _Family_?) she goes on already, speaking faster, looking at the ground now. "There are of course some people with what you call the ATA gene among those here as well…this is not quite the same level though, less recent."

She looks up. "I suppose…what I mean to say is…"

"We're not _cousins_ right?" The question isn't entirely serious but…this could get really awkward.

She laughs. "No, no…I only mean to say…you may not realise it, but you are closer to Alteran than you may think. Lantean. Ancient, as your people call us."

Okay. "Uhmm." he says. Even if he had been good at voicing feelings he would not have been able to do so now. He is confused, shocked, surprised, relieved…relieved? Yeah, he _is_ almost relieved because _maybe_ this explains why-

Her voice cuts through his thoughts. "You have not been imaging the voices." Her expression is slightly amused, and a little sad. "They are not going to go away either, unless you leave Atlantis. But I do not think you want that. Or that they want that." They? So that feeling he gets sometimes, in the chair, or in some of the rooms, or-

She nods. She has a habit of answering his questions before he has actually asked them out loud, or finished thinking them up for that matter. "The city has been lonely and…John, you know we were not all able to ascend do you not?" He isn't sure if he likes where this is going.

When he doesn't reply she goes on to tell him about how those left behind sought to escape and did so, for the most part, with varying degrees of success. The ascension machine the expedition had found a short while ago was, for all their advancement, as dangerous to its original owners then as it had been to one of his own team in the recent past, an unstable invention that would take years to complete. Years they did not have. Not everyone wanted to go back to the Milkyway, considering the circumstances in that galaxy, and they were so very sure their people would once return. They had done what seemed like the only logical thing; they had shared with the city itself. In a manner of speaking that is. Though opening the mind to one-another was indeed a common practise to relieve stress and share burdens (and at this moment John is again struck just by how _not_-human the Ancients were, for all their appearances being alike) doing so with a machine required some technological aid. But in the end, it worked. They had just not expected to be there for ten thousand years, alone in the machine, becoming unused to the feeling of flesh, forgetting their heartbeat, their individuality. By the time his touch had woken them, it was too late. Though they had recognised him their attempts to share had been those of an entire city. Whispers while he navigated the chair. A soft welcoming murmur in the back of his head when he returned from yet another mission. That unexplainable feeling of _belonging_, of home.

He doesn't say anything in return and she doesn't seem to expect him to do so. They are at the temple now, and when he still does not speak she leaves him alone for a moment to get him something to drink. Or perhaps she is simply being considerate and decides to give him some time alone. John tries to figure out what this all means. Well, what this means aside from the fact that he doesn't have to worry about having to see a shrink about his hallucinations somewhere in the very near future. That's nice.

"I guess" he says when she returns with some sort of bright green fruit and some water, "I guess that does explain a lot. I…Thank you."

Chaya smiles.

"We are very grateful." she says.

"We? I –"

"For your keeping the city alive. The Others are. They do not interfere, but that does not mean they were happy to slowly let their loved ones disappear entirely." She grins somewhat mischievously "of course I did not let that rule bother me, but I cannot interfere anywhere but here, as you know…" her voice is sad, and John wonders of whom she thinks, what loved ones of hers are still locked in the city's iron embrace.

"You're welcome." he says, and it feels inadequate, but he can't really think of anything else to say. He hopes she is reading his mind again. She probably is anyway.

"And you will always be welcome among us."

He isn't quite ready to figure out what that means yet. But her smile is warm, and so is the evening sun on his back. If there ever was a place he felt welcome it would be here. Or on Atlantis. Either way…

When he steps through the gate the next time he for the first time answers what seems like a faint, feathery whisper at the back of his mind. Home. Belonging. Stay. Please.

"Yes", he says.

And the voice suddenly seems a tiny bit louder, a little less uniform, scattering into a thousand different questions, the vague outlines of personalities. Maybe one day…

And John just smiles.


End file.
